Facts About Alcohol
- Alcohol is a factor in the four leading causes of death among persons ages 10 to 24: (1) motor-vehicle crashes, (2) unintentional injuries, (3) homicide, and (4) suicide.
- High alcohol consumption is associated with lower GPAs, lower academic achievement, and lower wage potential.
- Adolescent drinkers score worse on tests of vocabulary, general information, memory, and verbal and nonverbal information recall as compared to non-drinkers.
- 69.3 percent of 9th through 12th graders who consumed alcohol in 2005-2006 reported having trouble with police.
- Teens who drink are at higher risk of carrying out, or being a victim of, a physical or sexual assault. In fact, alcohol is linked to 2/3 of all sexual assaults and date rapes of teens.
- Children who drink are 7.5 times more likely to use any illicit drug, more than 22 times more likely to use marijuana, and 50 times more likely to use cocaine than children who never drank.
- Teenage drinkers have an increased stroke risk.
- Teenage drinkers have an increased risk of suicidal thoughts, violence, and depression.
- Alcohol kills 6 times more teenagers than all other illegal drugs combined.
- In the U.S., about 5,000 teenage deaths each year are caused by alcohol.
Why 21?
The human brain doesn’t finish developing until a person is around 20 years old. Drinking alcohol while the brain is still developing can cause permanent, irreversible brain damage and can have a negative impact for the rest of your life.
People who begin drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcoholism than those who begin at age 21.
“Now, raising that drinking age is not a fad or an experiment. It’s a proven success. Nearly every State that has raised the drinking age to 21 has produced a significant drop in the teenage driving fatalities. In the State of New Jersey, whose Governor made it a very personal crusade for himself, the rate dropped by 26 percent; Illinois, it has fallen 23 percent; in Michigan, 31 percent.”
—President Ronald Reagan
Get Information about other afflictions
| Facts about Alcohol | Facts about Tobacco |
| Facts about Marijuana | Facts about Other Drugs |
| Facts about Suicide and Depression | Facts about Dating Violence |
